Uppingham in the 18th Century by Valerie Hughes Uppingham Local History and Studies Group © 2014 Page - 1 Contents Introduction Farming Inclosure Transport Routes Manors Justice Town Layout & Buildings Church Conclusion Appendix i - Parish Registers 1701 - 1799, Baptisms and Burials Graph Bibliography List of Plates Plate 1: Baines Farmhouse, 28 High Street West, Uppingham Plate 2: Hall, off High Street East Plate 3: Georgian fronts, High Street East, North Side Plate 4: Georgian fronts , High Street East, North Side Plate 5: Georgian fronts, High Street East, South Side Plate 6: Cuplpin & Sons, Butchers, Corner of High Street East, South Side and Queen Street Plate 7: As above Plate 8: Crown Inn, High Street East, North Side Page - 2 Uppingham in the 18th Century ©Valerie Hughes, 2014 Introduction Farming At the commencement of the 18th Century Uppingham was The Midlands had, by and large, a pattern of townships with a thriving market town servicing a rural hinterland. Rural large areas of common pasture land and open arable fields so life had remained virtually unchanged since medieval times whereas in other regions of the country in previous centuries with the system of common fields, tenant farmers and for a bundling up of strips for inclosure happened piecemeal, the most part absentee landlords. The enclosure of common inclosure, as a result of the existence of their larger fields grazing and arable land under the 1770 and 1799 Enclosure came somewhat late to the Midlands. These regions were Acts changed the balance in favour of the larger landowners called Champion Regions dominated by nucleated villages, as small tenant farmers were at a disadvantage when they and extensive and usually tightly regulated open heavy clay could not augment their own land resources by access to soil fields running to the edge of town. There was little waste the common field system and the messuage, a farmhouse or common grazing land. (Williamson 2002). Uppingham with land annexed, often became unviable. The landscape of could be so described. The development of the mortgage in Uppingham which had incorporated farms within the Town the 17th century made the purchase of land easier and was began to change and there is evidence in new building of another factor which helped create larger parcels of land as some prosperity, no doubt a reflection of the buoyant service landlords bought up struggling tenanted farms. These were industry and the rise of the middleman in that period. increasingly turned over to pasture. The owners were for the There was no industrialisation in the immediate locality but most part petty traders or aspiring professionals and the inevitably workers must have been lured towards the big land leased out for income. In the early part of the century cities and the factories as agricultural practices changed. the population growth was sluggish and cereal prices low Less farm labourers were needed for animal husbandry and which might account for the move to animal husbandry. In the threat of the workhouse loomed large. Change though was Rutland three fifths farmland was laid to permanent grass inevitable as farming yields had to be maximised to feed the and two fifths to convertible husbandry featuring long cities and landowners could see the potential for enhanced grass leys (Crutchley 1794, 12). Another development across profits. It should be noted though that the agricultural the region was the building of farmhouses within the farm revolution in terms of improved farming practices started lands which had not been possible for the farmer when strip much earlier than the 18th Century but the institutional farming prevailed. This does not seem to have happened in changes which created larger farms and thus more income Uppingham. In the period under review older farmhouses for the landlords had its roots in the period under review. could still be seen within the town and Baines Farmhouse (Williamson 2002). The road system would ensure that the for example with a date stone of 1787 at 28 High Street bustle of commerce would continue but it was in this century West would appear to have been built or modernised in the that Oakham took over as the County Town. The new canal Eighteenth Century. (Plate 1) These were held in severality system being established throughout the country which and where they survived continued to be so. could move freight more quickly and to which Oakham became linked in 1802 was in prospect in 1785 but this does Inclosure not explain the shift in importance much earlier in the The Parish of Uppingham contained 1,463 acres of land. There Century. The changes in the Legal System as it became more were three open fields Brand, Lound and Wood, as well as centralised and Oakham Castle a more attractive venue the Wilkershaw Cow Pasture and Many Bushes Pasture, the may be relevant. In 1694 John Sellar the mapmaker cited greater part of which were inclosed in the reign of George III Oakham as the County Town but In 1717 William Redmayne, under an Act of Parliament in 1770. In further inclosures in on a set of playing cards produced originally in 1676 but 1799 part of Beaumont Chase was annexed and commoners still on sale in 1754, cited Uppingham as its ‘chiefe’ Town received land free from deer (Ryder, 2006). Beaumont so in perception it seems they were running about equal in Chase, 463 acres, was an extra parochial district within the importance during the first part of the Eighteenth Century ecclesiastical parish of Uppingham. In the 1799 Inclosure but as the Century progressed Uppingham was falling into it was formed into a parish. The Brand to the South where second place. (Deadman and Brooks 49 and 42). A study of horse races were held until 1783 was inclosed at the same Magna Britannia et Hibernia 1720 – 1730 found that the Rev. time (Victoria History 61 and 95). It could be said that the Cox stated ‘…Uppingham is a market town and the best in closes, the early fenced fields for young stock or other crops the County’ (p.513) but later on ‘tho’ now the second in the as planting became more divers, were the early Inclosures County’ (p.530). This would seem to bear out the premise that but they were generally farmed In common. Uppingham had been the more important Town and give an end date of 1730 when the balance shifted. Page - 3 There were earlier instances of formal Inclosure. In 1769 current London Road, to Lyddington and thus through to Robert Hotchkin Esq was granted ‘the right to inclose a Rockingham. Robert Morden’s map of 1695 (Deadman and certain road called the Upper Lane leading from the High Brooks 51) shows a road entering Uppingham somewhere Street to the East end of Uppingham to a certain place called to the East of the High Street but this road is the later fork The Hogg Hill beginning at the said High Street North and from the main Oakham/ St Neots road. He does show the ending at the North East corner of the dwelling house of the exit route down Scale Hill. The maps of the late seventeenth said Robert Hotchkin’. Also ‘to inclose another road beginning century that I have seen, so far as the routes from Oakham to in a certain street called Horn Lane to the above mentioned Uppingham, show the main Oakham/St Neots road and the dwelling house of the said Robert Hotchkin’ (C202/157/8-29) fork which took the route past Martinsthorp[e] and Preston. The older route via Ridlington is not shown. Morden’s map The Inclosure Map of 1804 charts the layout of Uppingham of 1695 was reprinted in 1701 by Herman Moll, a Geographer, after Inclosure but there also exists a comprehensive with the addition of a compass and some alterations but no survey of agriculture in Rutland published in 1809 (Pitt & change in this respect. At the start of the eighteenth century Parkinson). It is not possible to tell exactly when the data the perception appears to be that the main route through was collected but the rainfall chart runs from 1791 – 1798 so Uppingham was the fork from the Oakham/St Neots road. we could suppose that it would help build up a picture of land use at the end of the 18th century after the final process of It was somewhat surprising that H Moll in his ‘A New Description Inclosure had been completed. of England and Wales. A new and correct set of maps of each County - Rutlandshire’ printed in 1724 clearly shows only the Transport Routes older North/South route out of Oakham and the main route A major change in the period under review was the from Oakham to St Neots which runs to the East of Uppingham. development of the road system throughout Rutland. Interestingly he has omitted the route past Martinsthorp[e] Uppingham as a market town was of strategic importance and Preston but included the older route through Ridlington for local trade but as the cities expanded it would inevitably even though his reprint of Morden in 1701 differed. Was there become a useful link in the national food supply chain. At confusion or a professional difference of opinion? The 1724 the start of the Century there would, of course, have been a map does not show an East/ West Route (Deadman and Brooks network of footways leading to and from Uppingham linking 59). Mapping was not an exact science in this period but does the various villages but there is no direct evidence that any reflect common perception of what was important.